When is a new Prefab’s album not a new Prefab’s album? When it was written and recorded in 1992-93, and isn’t played on by anyone other than Paddy McAloon. And therein, perhaps, lies the problem.
McAloon is incapable of writing a bad song. He also has that touch of the truly great songwriter in that the songs appear to be delivered by characters even when they seem to be most autobiographical. And McAloon has never been afraid of reaching out to the big verities. This album starts with the words, ‘In the beginning was a mighty bang’ and continues, ‘The sky was silent./God was moved./He made a choice./ He said ‘let music be my voice!’, although the absconded God is a permanent presence(!) in McAloon’s pantheon. And tilts at organised Christianity come thick and fast throughout his back catalogue. Here, the jaunty ‘Ride’ fiercely ironises fundamentalism. But other songs are equally far reaching. ‘Meet the New Mozart’ starts ‘Meet the new Mozart, he’s in the bed where commerce sleeps with art. Who can blame him? No pauper’s grave, this time around, will claim him.’
The problem with this album isn’t the quality of song, in particular, the lovely ‘Earth: The Story so Far’ is as good as anything that he’s written. But to listen to this after its ‘predecessor’ Jordan, The Comeback is to realise what’s missing here – the dialogue with the band: Thomas Dolby’s cleanliness and depth of production, its deft trajectories, a banjo break here, two bars of cinema organ there; the ethereal precision of Wendy Smith’s backing vocals, Neal Conti’s muscular artistry on drums, brother Martin’s loving bass lines. The surface of Let’s Change the World with Music is dulled by McAloon’s reliance on synths, however capable a pianist and guitarist he is. The recording comes across as a set of very fine demos.
A picture of Paddy McAloon shows him in country-squire-does-ZZTop mode, and an essay he’s written for the liner notes compares his frustrations over this album with the reassembly of Shine by Brian Wilson. But Wilson reworked that music with a bunch of live musicians. McAloon’s last real project, the almost flawless I Trawl the Megahertz, was realised with other arrangers and real strings. Not so long ago, the Prefabs even did a tour. Let’s hope the McAloon brothers haven’t done a Gallacher’s on us, and that Let’s Change the World with Music is just an aperitif for something more fully realised.
Ian Pople